


The Old Master

by AlienofDoom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Post-Film, Spoilers, Spoilers (Seriously)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5475788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlienofDoom/pseuds/AlienofDoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BEWARE FOR HERE BE SPOILERS</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Luke Skywalker has been found. Against his wishes it seems. Now Rey has to try to convince him that he is still needed in the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Master

**Author's Note:**

> Star Wars is my baby... however it seems I must have kidnapped it since I don't have any legal ownership of it.  
> (Also seriously, there are spoilers to follow, you've been warned multiple times)

She holds out the lightsaber to him, desperately willing him to take it from her hand. It's not that's she's scared of it anymore, she understands more now... she thinks. She's not scared but she wants him to  _do_ something. For what seems to her like hours he's just stood there looking at her with that  _look_ on his face; his only motion the lowering of his hood.

She briefly considers re-offering the lightsaber, but decides against it, there's no way he hasn't seen it... right?  _ Oh no, maybe he's died. Maybe he held out just long enough for me to show up, and then he died. That's why he has that strange look on his face, he was just about to say something and then he died, or maybe, _ her fears prove unfounded when he does move again, even if it's only his mouth.

“Where did you find that?” his voice is old. Moreso than just his age would account for, his voice is the type of old you get after not speaking for weeks on end (she knows), but amplified ten-fold.

“A... a friend gave it to me,” it's true, in a roundabout fashion. It's easier right now to think that Maz gave it to her than to remember how it had actually come into her possession.

Suddenly, gently, the lightsaber is pulled out of her hand and glides across the distance between them. He raises his skeletal metal hand and picks it out of the air. Rey is astonished, she knows of the Force, she felt the Force infuse her very being during her duel with Kylo Ren, but she'd never realised that the Force could be so... peaceful. Kylo Ren was all fury and chaos and it boiled off him in waves of dark malice, and when they had fought, the Force hadn't been like this. It had been ice in her gut that drove her forward and told her  _block low, swing left_ . This was more like a tide ebbing and flowing around her. Even with her untrained senses, she couldn't help but feel it, it was serenity like she'd never experienced before.

He speaks up again, his voice still possessing that strained quality, “This friend of yours must have been very eager to find me.” He lifts his gaze from the blade to her for a moment and she now realises what seemed so off about his face before; it's his eyes. She remembers what Maz had said back on Takodana,  _I've lived long enough to see the same eyes in many people,_ and even though Rey hasn't lived a tenth as long as Maz, she's seen these eyes before. They're the same eyes she saw in General Organa before she left, they're tired eyes. General Organa was tired of fighting she thinks, or perhaps she was simply tired of losing everything that mattered to her. Luke Skywalker looks tired too. Maybe – probably – tired of the same things as General Organa.

“Your sister, General Organa – that is – she, we, the Republic need you.”

Before she can get any further, he ignites the saber, waving it slightly side to side and cocks his head, presumably listening for any discrepancy in the hum as it slices through the air. He looks up at her, “Nobody needs me anymore, young one. I've only ever brought people pain or misery,” he retracts the blue blade back into the hilt.

She shakes her head, “No! That's not true! In all the stories you defeated the Emperor, you saved the galaxy. We need you to do it again!”

His voice drops even lower, and the scratchiness intensifies, “No, my father killed the Emperor, my father brought balance to the Force, not I. The stories you speak of just stories.”

“You don't understand!” she's well and proper screaming now, even though here – in this place – it feels somehow profane to do so, “The First Order and Kylo Ren, and, and, everything! They're going to destroy everything the Rebellion ever accomplished! They've already killed most of the senators and the Chancellor and they're just going to keep killing unless we stop them! Unless you stop them.”

“Weren't you listening, young one?” his eyes light with a fire, “I can't stop them, I'm the reason for them! Ben Solo became Kylo Ren  _because of me_ ! My nephew fell to the Dark Side because I'm not a Jedi! The Jedi are gone, dead for decades now,” he takes a couple of deep breaths, and the fire drains from his eyes, replaced with the tiredness she'd seen before.

He floats the lightsaber back to Rey. “Now, please leave,” he says turning his back again.

Rey crosses her arms, “No.”

His head bows slightly and his voice cracks with grief, “Please, leave me be.”

“No,” she takes half a step towards him, but then reconsiders and goes back to her original position. For several more hour-minutes, they stand like that, neither saying anything, neither moving, the silver hilt hanging in the air between them.

“Han Solo's dead,” the lightsaber clatters to the stone.

“I... I know.”

“He died trying to stop this killing. He died trying to stop Kylo Ren. And you're just going to stand there and let that, that monster go?”

Still facing out towards the ocean he replies, “I tried to show Ben the path of the light. I tried to stop him from traveling down this path he seems determined to follow, but I couldn't. I made things worse. In teaching him of the light I only taught him how to pervert it towards the dark.”

“So help us now.” she feels as though she's traveling in circles with this argument, “Help bring the light back to the galaxy, you don't have to do it alone! There's General Organa, and Chewbacca, and all the Resistance. There's Poe Dameron, and there's, there's Finn,” it hurts her to say his name, but she knows it's a name that has to be said. Then quieter, almost as an afterthought, “And... and there's me. Please. The Jedi of the stories once protected the galaxy from evil and the dark side. Why can't you do so now?”  
“... I told you, young one, there are no Jedi. Not anymore.”

She throws her hands up into the air, “Okay, you know what, I'm going to go get Chewbacca, and have him carry you down the _Falcon._ We can talk about this more on the way back to D'Qar.”

She unslings her staff and starts mentally preparing herself for the long walk down back to the  _Falcon's_ landing point.

“Rey,” she starts for a second,  _Had she ever told him her name?_ “There are no Jedi anymore, but... perhaps there can be again. Not me. I'm too old, too tired, but maybe I was never meant to truly be a Jedi. Perhaps there's too much of the old ways of doing things in me yet,” he finally turns back around to look at her, “But you? You are young, full of justice, zeal, full of the Force. Maybe you can become the first of the New Jedi like I never was. Maybe with you I can in some small way redeem myself for my failure with Ben.”

There's something new in his gaze now, and she can't quite place it this time. “I can't go with you to D'Qar. I... I can't face my sister, not yet. But if you stay here I can prepare you perhaps for what may come.”

He shakes his head, “My time has passed, my war has been fought. It's your turn now to take up the sword and beat back the dark.” For the first time he moves his feet, walking towards her, along the way he stops and scoops up the saber. Now he holds it out for her, “I can't fight the First Order myself. But stay here. Learn.”

She glances back over her shoulder, straining to see the dot by the sea she knows is the  _Falcon_ . “I...” she thinks of General Organa, lost her son, her brother, her husband, wanting any –  _all –_ of them back. She remembers her promise to Finn. 

But then she recalls Finn's condition, the sound of his pain mixed with the lightsaber splitting his back roars in her ears. She hears herself scream as Han Solo tumbles down into the fog. She sees the bright streams of red cascading across the sky and destroying planets.

She closes her eyes. She spreads her thoughts and again feel the gentle tide of serenity wash over her.

She reaches out and grabs the lightsaber, “Yes. Master Skywalker, I accept.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this is really just me going "What! We ended there?!" and I really just wanted two or three more minutes, so here's my (poor) interpretation as to what those two or three minutes might have looked like.


End file.
